pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

Grantaire stares up at him. Then, at last, he clambers to his feet (relying heavily, it must be said, upon the door for support as he does so.)

"Perhaps," he says, "you ought to come in."

It seems the obvious thing -- even Grantaire, least revolutionary of all the habitues of the Musain has some sense of discretion -- and only once he's taken a step back in does it occur to him that his room, wildly unkempt and strewn with clothes every which way, is no fit place for Enjolras. Well, for a serious discussion with anyone, but especially --

(Enjolras half-lifts a hand -- but Grantaire is already committed to hauling himself upright with the door by that point. His arm drops back to his side.)

"Thank you." He follows.

He shows no sign of noticing any of the mess. Whether this stems from courtesy or from a genuine disregard for the material world in the face of abstract principles is, of course, a matter open to interpretation.

...It must be admitted that there's no immediately obvious place to sit. Well, standing is fine.

Grantaire looks distractedly around, knocks a pair of trousers off the room's one chair and tosses them across the room, then says, almost apologetically --

"If we are to discuss the overthrow, not only of the government, but of all principles of time, history, life and death -- interruption, it seems to me, would be inopportune."

Still, he hesitates at the door, not yet closing it.

"Yes."

The odds of interruption by anyone in a position to affect events in Paris of 1830 or 1832 seem extremely low. Nonetheless, caution is sensible. Firmly ingrained in all of them, as well; Enjolras would not have given any further details, out in the hall.

Nor with the door open. He waits in the nearest spot of available floor space, just inside the door.

It's enough. Grantaire shuts the door.

As his hand falls away from the knob, he seems not to know quite what to do with himself; he runs his fingers through his hair, folds his hands behind his back, takes a few confused paces to the other side of the room. Then he turns back to Enjolras.

"A series of actions have taken place. You and I are the result of them. For a result to affect its cause, it's like a babe birthing its mother. Quite a sight to behold, I would imagine -- but the natural design fails to encompass it." He's pacing again, unevenly, steps marked with hesitation." Ah, well, that's how it seems to me, but I'm only a stupid man, after all; take pity on me, Enjolras, and explain these things to me."

"To be honest, I don't understand it. I wouldn't have thought it possible."

"But it has occurred. Bossuet is here: he is manifestly from that time. The first thing he asked me was why I was in a wineshop rather than helping to take the Hôtel de Ville. He's here, and he is Bound. A man need not understand all details of a situation to take advantage of its consequences."

"How will the changes unfold? I don't know. What will the consequences be for you and me, here, and the others with us? I don't know that either. But we have this chance. I see no reasonable course but to take it."

The strangeness of saying words like this not to Combeferre, but in conversation with Grantaire of all people, is a quiet, nagging feeling of disorientation. But there's a gift in it, all the same. Never before could he have imagined having such a discussion with Grantaire; and yet here they are.

Grantaire pauses again, reaching out to brace his hand against the wall, fingers splayed.

What will the consequences be? Surely, surely the world won't sit tamely back and allow itself to be unraveled by a ghost; it's some dim sense of this, more even than of the political dangers, that caused Grantaire to invite Enjolras in and to shut the door. Not that a closed door is any protection against forces such as these.

A wiser man -- or a man who loved himself better -- would balk before the risks.

But, as he's already stated, Grantaire is not a wise man, and as for himself -

- well, what's one ghost? Or, for that matter, one death? Nonexistence, after all, was all he ever asked for.

Slowly, he begins to smile.

"You'll chastise me," he says. "Well! That's fair, it's a serious matter. Forgive me if I laugh, but I can't help it -- it's the best joke I can conceive of playing on the universe. And how this universe deserves it!"

"I don't understand you."

There's no exasperation in his voice, no harshness; no chastisement. Only bemusement.

"Ah, well -- never mind!"

Enjolras has never understood the cruel, meaningless pranks of the universe to begin with. If he ever did understand, he wouldn't be able to be Enjolras.

"Only know that I'm with you. Believe it!" He turns to face him directly, his face a fierce grin. "I'll tell you, Enjolras, I'll be the soldier I never was for that. Man against man, it's a farce. Man against time -- that's sublime!"

What does it signify that the time that Enjolras wishes to rewrite contains the only meaningful moment of Grantaire's life -- that any alteration of history would likely consign him back forever to the drunkard's heap?

It doesn't signify, not in the least. Perhaps Enjolras' success may cause Grantaire as he is now to disappear, and not know what he's missed -- or perhaps it will cause the universe itself, twisted beyond sustaining by the force of the paradox, to snap in two. And wouldn't that be the best joke of all!

"Very well," says Enjolras, slowly.

Is the man drunk? He didn't think so -- he still doesn't truly -- but he's almost acting it now.

Perhaps only intoxicated with possibility. Grantaire cares nothing for the revolution, Enjolras knows that, but the possibility of saving their friends--

For that, yes, he'll believe Grantaire's wild words. He returns the smile: smaller, his own fierceness tightly contained, but present in its way. "Very well."

"Though I doubt it will come to soldiering. All we can likely do is give Bossuet as much information as we can."

"Ah, well, if it's information! If you look in the rubbish heap --" Grantaire taps the side of his head, significantly. "-- it's not inconceivable that you'll sometimes find a treasure or two. I'll do what I can."

He pauses, then, and looks directly at Enjolras, and asks, in a different tone, "Do you believe me?"

Enjolras returns the look. Directness is his natural state. "I do."

If it were one of the others, no more words would be needed. But then, if it were one of the others, the question would never have been asked.

"I don't understand the joke you see. But I do believe you. And I've always known you to be capable."

Capable, and loyal -- there has never been doubt of Grantaire betraying them. It's only a question of whether he would ever feel motivated to turn his skills to any serious purpose. But here, after death, in a bar filled with the impossible, it seems he's found that motivation.

"Indeed?"

Startled, Grantaire laughs again, though it's a slightly different kind of laughter. "Then the past has already been altered! Still, if you say it, I'm certainly no man to doubt you. I became afflicted with belief in you long ago."

"I doubted whether you would use your talents, not their existence."

Directness is Enjolras's natural state.

"Is there anything else you'd know from me now?"

If not, he has work to be about. But if Grantaire does have questions, he's welcome to ask.

"Only if there's anything else you'd tell me." Grantaire's eyes flick to the closed door, and he takes another step back, to lean against the wall. "I won't keep you here."

Enjolras considers. Shakes his head.

"No."

"After I've spoken to Bossuet, I'll tell you of it."

Grantaire nods.

"I hope I'll soon speak to him myself."

Another flash of a grin, there and then gone.

"He's a man who laughs."

Enjolras's mind is already on plans and tactics, the autopsy of a failed revolution and the changes that might remedy some of its disasters. But all the same, his lips twitch at that sally.

He knows himself. If lack of laughter's a fault, then yes, it's one of his.

Grantaire is on the other side of the room; it's not so large, but still, it divides them. Enjolras doesn't reach to press his arm or shoulder as he might otherwise. Instead, after that brief instant of humor, he turns to let himself out.

Enjolras leaves.

Another man might take a moment to consider the vast tangle of emotions generated by the conversation of the past few minutes.

Grantaire, being Grantaire, takes the far more sensible route of circumventing all emotions whatsoever by going straight back to his interrupted sleep.